Opposites Attract
by Marina918
Summary: When Carl Gallagher is assigned a tutor in order to prevent him from failing out, he doesn't expect to meet Grace Alden, a do-gooder who wants to make him her newest project. To their surprise, they both learn more from the other than either of them bargained for.


**Hello all- this is a new story I just started working on. Please let me know if it is too fast paced or if Carl seems too OOC. Also reviews and favorites fuel me! Sorry this first chapter is short, I kind of need to flesh out the story line a bit. Happy reading!**

It was a quiet March afternoon, or at least as quiet as the Gallagher house could ever be, and Carl Gallagher sat as his kitchen table, nervously twiddling his thumbs. It wasn't like him to be scared of anything, he had survived Juvie for Christ's sake, but this time it a was a little bit different. His sister's no-nonsense voice shouted at him from the kitchen as she furiously scrubbed the dishes that piled up in the tiny sink.

"This is your very last chance, Carl. If you don't start doing well in school they're going to kick you out. If they kick you out, I'm kicking you out too. I suggest that if you want a bed until you turn eighteen that you start taking this seriously."

Carl groaned audibly. He was no good at school, everyone knew that. His teachers expected him to fail out at this point. Try as he may, he didn't feel like he had much of a chance left. "They're gonna send some old fat perve again! I'm not listening to senile guy lecture me about triangles and shit. I don't care if you kick me out, I really can't do the whole school thing no many how many tutors they hire," Carl whined as he tipped back his chair and almost lost his balance.

Before Fiona could yell at him for being a little brat there was a knock at the door. "I'll get it," she spat at him, throwing the faded towel she was holding back in the sink. "Be nice or no dinner for you."

Carl leaned his head back and proceeded to whine about the failures of Illinois' public school system until he heard a high pitched female voice in the other room. He immediately slammed his chair back onto the tile floor and listened in to what the voice said. "Nice to meet you, I'm Grace Alden here to tutor Carl."

Fiona, clearly as shocked as Carl to see the girl standing in her doorway. "Yeah, um, of course c'mon in. Carl's back there in the kitchen," she pointed back to Carl who felt a sudden urge to run and hide. _Too late,_ he thought as they made eye contact.

The girl, Grace, pulled a large green backpack off her back as she strode towards Carl and the kitchen table. "Hi," she said, smiling at him and waving. "Are we getting started here?" she motioned to the table and the still very confused boy just nodded. Hanging the backpack on her chair and pulling out a few books and an iPad, she sat down across from him.

The first thing Carl noticed about her was her huge, thick framed glasses that sat on her nose. He couldn't help but think of how much of a nerd she must be, and how if she was a boy in those glasses he'd probably kick his ass. Then he noticed the way her eyes scrunched up when the girl smiled at him. _What, is she half Asian or something?_ he thought. She couldn't be, she had blonde hair. Asians don't have blonde hair, right? He stopped thinking about her strange eyes when he heard her voice. If he hadn't known any better, he would've thought a mythical fairy or some shit was in his kitchen. The girl sounded like Snow White or something. Overall, he had to say she was probably the most, well, unique, girl to ever sit in this kitchen.

His thoughts raced at a thousand miles an hour. Why did the school send some kid? Why was a girl like this in his kitchen? Why was she looking at him as if he was some fifth grader learning division? He wanted to ask her all these questions and more, but she spoke first. "I'm Grace and I'm your tutor." She paused and looked at him like she expected him to introduce himself back.

Feeling awkward he simply muttered, "Carl."

"Right," she said, taken aback by his lack of enthusiasm. "So what's your worst subject?" Grace asked him, reaching into her bag and pulling out a purple pencil pouch.

Carl watched as she unzipped the pouch and revealed a hundred multi-colored gel pens. "I'm failing everything," he replied, dubious of all the pens. Only stuck up rich bitches had multi colored gel pens.

"Why?" Grace looked at him but he continued to stare at the pens. The whole situation seemed surreal to him, and that question just topped it all off.

"What do you mean, 'why'? School is fucking stupid, that's why."

Grace sighed. "Okay so, lack of motivation and rebellious nature is the reason."

"Fuck you," Carl spat. This bitch was starting to get on his nerves.

Grace looked behind her quickly, checking if Fiona was there, as if Fiona would care if she told Carl off. "Listen up," she whispered viciously as she leaned closer to him. "I know your'e in jeopardy of expulsion if you don't pass this semester. You don't want to fail out because then you will never get anywhere in life and I don't want you to fail because I don't want your mistakes to bring down my tutoring reputation. I don't care if you hate school, you're going to pass this semester whether you like it or not."

Carl did not expect that at all. A unusual as it was for him, he was speechless. The tiny little princess voiced, gel pen bitch just got up in his face and practically threatened him.

"So let's start with geometry," Grace stated, her voice back to a normal level and this time much calmer than before.

Carl reached for his math binder and shut up. The blonde started talking about triangle and angles and sine and cosine and all those words that Carl's brain automatically tuned out. He really did try to listen, but he just couldn't keep his attention on what she was saying. He started watching her lips move in an attempt to understand the words that came out, but all he thought about was how cute it was when her tongue escaped her mouth to quickly dart past her lips.

 _What the fuck dude?_ He shouted at himself. _She's your fucking nerdy tutor! Can you stop thinking about sex for a single minute?_

"I need some water," Carl blurted out, cutting Grace off in the middle of her sentence. "I'll get you a glass too," he added, not wanting to be rude. _Why do I care about being rude? Carl Gallagher doesn't care about being rude._

He brought the glasses to the table and Grace thanked him quickly, taking a sip. "Okay so clearly you've run out of brain capacity for geometry today… let's move on to English."

"Actually, I have a chemistry test on friday- could we do some of that?" Carl butted in. Grace beamed at him, thinking that he finally started to give a little bit of a shit.

"Chemistry… what unit?"

"Covalent and ionic bonds."

"Alright. Bonds it is." Grace pulled another review book out of her bag and flipped through the pages until she found the chapter on bonds. She began to read parts of it aloud and immediately Carl's mind went right out the window. _Nah she's not asian. Her eyes are kinda big when she's not smiling. And also there's the fact that she's blonde. And her name is Grace. That's like the whitest name you can have… remember that time Fiona took me and Debs to the zoo? They had all those walruses. I wonder what baby walruses look like. You only ever see pictures of adult walruses… also squirrels… what do baby squirrels look like? Probably just small squirrels right? What if squirrels could play footballs but instead of footballs they throw acorns around? I should put a squirrel in a helmet that would be so funny…_

Carl laughed out loud thinking about tiny squirrels in football jerseys and helmets. Grace gave him a strange look. "What's so funny about electrons?" she asked, genuinely confused.

"Oh nothing," Carl said, still smiling. "I was thinking about what it would be like if squirrels played football."

Grace shot him a disapproving look. "So you weren't listening to me explain electron bonds?" She already knew the answer.

"I just get distracted." Carl looked down at the table and tried to refocus himself. "Sorry," he apologized.

Grace looked at him for a minute, trying to figure him out. Her face lit up when a brilliant idea entered her head. "I think I have an idea of how to get through to you," she told him.

Carl seriously doubted that but said nothing. If the girl wanted to feel like she was making a difference he wasn't going to stop her.

"We're out of time today but I'll be back tomorrow. Try to look over your chemistry notes before then."

"Will do," he replied although he knew that wasn't going to happen. _She's just like everyone else_ he thought as he watched her pack all her books and multi colored pens into her bag. _She thinks she can help me but I'm just a lost cause from the ghetto._ Carl watched her leave and a feeling of quietness overcame him. She was a nice girl, but obviously a very dumb one at that. Teachers read off information to him all day at school and it did nothing, so why was she any different?

When he heard the door close and knew that she was out of the house, he ran up the narrow staircase to his room. With Lip and Ian out of the house, Lip's old room was now his. He flung himself onto the bed and stared at the chipped paint ceiling. Carl willed his brain to think about one thing for more than thirty seconds but he kept bouncing from one idea to the next. It's like his thoughts were running at three hundred miles an hour and all crashing into each other at once. He flipped onto his stomach and screamed into a pillow. It had always been like this and now this girl shows up and thinks she can fix him? Likely story.

He tried not to think about Grace or the failure of a tutoring session that occurred earlier for the rest of the night. His brain thought of everything he had ever seen ever, but it never brought that back up. For that, Carl was thankful.


End file.
